The passive-aggressive animated avatar — which always seemed to develop jock itch when you ignored it, causing it to scratch in a loud and obnoxious fashion — has made his way back to our world as a not-so-secret military defense research project.

You can thank the Black Budget people for it, and it’s worse than you think.

And although intended to ease the US military’s bureaucratic load, an artificially intelligent helper based on the project is heading the way of consumers later this year.

That’s right. Clippy will come back, and you can blame the mad bureaucrats at Darpa and the grant-hungry scientists from 60 colleges and universities, who collaborated on the project.

This is either more serious military waste, or it’s a pilot for a new show:

Clippy. Office Assistant. An icon that is waaaay too hyper. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world’s first bionic paper clip. Clippy will be that paper clip. More frustrating than he was before. Dumber. More Intrusive. More itchy

If this pans out, expect Spuds McKenzie to show up on your TV screens by the Super Bowl.(via Slashdot)